But such movements had always been, in the last analysis, the work of the few.  It had always been the militant minority which ruled.  Always the great mass of the people had submitted.  They had fought, one way or the other when the time came, but without any deep conviction behind them.  They wanted peace, the right to labor.  They warred, to find peace.  Small concern was it, to the peasant plowing his field, whether one man ruled over him or a dozen.  He wanted neither place nor power.

It came to this, then, Willy Cameron argued to himself.  This new world conflict was a struggle between the contented and the discontented.  In Europe, discontent might conquer, but in America, never.  There were too many who owned a field or had the chance to labor.  There were too many ways legitimately to aspire.  Those who wanted something for nothing were but a handful to those who wanted to give that they might receive.

* * * * *

Three days before the election, Willy Cameron received a note from Lily, sent by hand.

“Father wants to see you to-night,” she wrote, “and mother suggests that as you are busy, you try to come to dinner.  We are dining alone.  Do come, Willy.  I think it is most important.”

He took the letter home with him and placed it in a locked drawer of his desk, along with a hard and shrunken doughnut, tied with a bow of Christmas ribbon, which had once helped to adorn the Christmas tree they had trimmed together.  There were other things in the drawer; a postcard photograph, rather blurred, of Lily in the doorway of her little hut, smiling; and the cigar box which had been her cash register at the camp.

He stood for some time looking down at the post card; it did not seem possible that in the few months since those wonderful days, life could have been so cruel to them both.  Lily married, and he himself—­

Ellen came up when he was tying his tie.  She stood behind him, watching him in the mirror.

“I don’t know what you’ve done to your hair, Willy,” she said; “it certainly looks queer.”

“It usually looks queer, so why worry, heart of my heart?” But he turned and put an arm around her shoulders.  “What would the world be without women like you, Ellen?” he said gravely.

“I haven’t done anything but my duty,” Ellen said, in her prim voice.  “Listen, Willy.  I saw Edith again to-day, and she told me to do something.”

“To go home and take a rest?  That’s what you need.”

“No.  She wants me to tear up that marriage license.”

He said nothing for a moment.  “I’ll have to see her first.”

“She said it wouldn’t be any good, Willy.  She’s made up her mind.”  She watched him anxiously.  “You’re not going to be foolish, are you?  She says there’s no need now, and she’s right.”

“Somebody will have to look after her.”